Controversial media mogul Rupert Murdoch is celebrating the New Year with a foray into social networking.

The New Corporation boss is the latest public figure to join the ranks of Twitter, and has already been causing some controversy.

The 80-year-old has so far tweeted on everything from his family holiday to the Republican Party candidate election in the US.

Murdoch set up his Twitter account just three days ago, on New Year’s Eve, but already has over 80,000 followers. You can follow him at @rupertmurdoch.

It is a fairly unexpected move by the media mogul, who has been taking more and more of backseat from News Corporation’s business.

Murdoch reinventing himself?

Given that Twitter was used to wage a campaign against News of the World during the hacking scandal last year, some were surprised to see the much-maligned boss sign up to the social networking site.

Some have called it a cynical PR attempt by Murdoch to reinvent himself and claw back some credibility following last year’s PR disasters.

But News Corporation insists that Murdoch joined Twitter of his own accord in an attempt to get to grips with 21st Century technology.

So far, Murdoch is following just five people as he learns the Twitter ropes. These include Kym Fox – a journalism professor at Texas State University, Google co-founder Larry Page, and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

And the latest prolific tweeter Murdoch has opted to follow is his old business partner Lord Alan Sugar, with the two already exchanging Tweets.

Twitter controversy already

Maybe Murdoch could learn a thing or two from Lord Sugar, as the media mogul has already landed himself in hot water over a Tweet about the amount of holiday we get in Britain.

Murdoch tweeted: “Maybe Brits have too many holidays for broke country”, but before a Twitter backlash took hold, his wife Wendi Deng was on the ball and got him to remove the Tweet.

Deng immediately responded with: “EVERY1 @rupertmurdoch was only having a joke promise!!!”.